Top Ten Rock and Roll Movies of All Time

What can give you all the glamour of the rock star lifestyle without the ugly crash and burn at the end? The greatest rock and roll movies of all time, naturally. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Hedwig and the Angry Inch

This glam rock musical about an East German transvestite with a botched sex change operation follows Hedwig from boyhood behind the Iron Curtain to womanhood in the States. Watch Hedwig self-destruct as she embarks on a concert tour to follow former lover Tommy Gnosis, who has stolen her songs and achieved the fame that should have been hers.

2. Sid and Nancy

Sid and Nancy shows the rise and fall of Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious through the lens of his relationship with Nancy Spungen. The pitfalls of the rock and roll (or punk) lifestyle are all too apparent as Nancy gets Sid hooked on heroin. They make their downward spiral together until her murder and his arrest.

3. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted are in danger of failing their super-tough history class at San Dimas High, but all they want to do is rock out like Eddie Van Halen. Turns out, if they don't pass the class, a peaceful future of inspired by their music will never happen, so a time-traveling emissary gifts them a magic phone booth and the wherewithal to give the most stellar oral report San Dimas has ever seen. Ridiculous, optimistic, cheesy, and full of triumphant air guitar solos, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure puts forth the idea that rock and roll is the only universal truth big enough to help us all just get along.

4. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey picks up where their excellent adventure left off, with our heroes out of high school and floundering. Evil robots disguised as Bill and Ted kidnap the real boys, murder them, and take over their lives in order to lose the Battle of Bands so their creator may rule the future instead. Bill and Ted must defeat Death, outsmart God, and build better robots to defeat their evil robot twins in time to save some babes and make it to the show.

5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Square couple Janet and Brad break down in the middle of the night. They're taken in by a cast of singing oddballs living in a medieval castle (isn't this Ohio?), where they learn the joys of singing, dancing, and promiscuity from that sweet transvestite, Dr. Frank N. Furter.

6. Airheads

A bunch of lovable losers want nothing more than to hear their song played on the radio. After failing to make it big the conventional way, they stage a hostile takeover of a radio station. Inside, they break a lot of stuff, fall in love, and teach the corporate suits that rock and roll never sells out.

7. Pump up the Volume

Christian Slater is the quintessential high school nerd. When he is outed as the DJ of the coolest pirate radio station his suburban town has ever seen, all hell breaks loose as he defends his right to free speech, and the kids rally behind him.

8. Across the Universe

Across the Universe follows a group of young people through the turbulent 1960s, weaving together the history of rock with the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. As the music becomes more psychedelic, so do the plot and the visuals. There's a love story, too.

9. Backbeat

In one of the greatest rock and roll movies of all time about one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time, the story of early Beatles' bassist Stuart Sutcliffe isn't so much about the Beatles but about the choices we all make about when it's time to keep partying, and when it's time to grow up and settle down.

10. Velvet Goldmine

Like Sid y Nancy, Velvet Goldmine is one of the greatest rock and roll movies of all time because it shows the gritty underside of what the sex, drugs, and fame do to a star. And then it makes you wonder if it's worth it in the end. In the case of this fictionalized biopic of glam rock, the answer is yes, if only for the power of the music that came out of it.